Originally posted by wreckedelf
I ride a Trek Navigator 200 comfort bike with tires with a smooth tread and knobs on the edges. I ride 2000 to 2500 miles per year. When I bought the bike new I installed thorn-resistant inner tubes, plastic tire liners and Slime. I had just 1 flat in the first 2 years. In the third year, as the tires wore out I had a flat about every 2 months. I noticed the tires had small cracks in them. So I replaced the tires and I have had no flats in 8 months. I think the condition of the tire is important.
I had a similar experience. Mine was a trek Navigator 100 comfort bike. The tires sound much like yours (Bontrager?). They were 26x1.95.
I don't know if my tubes were special as I never asked. But I did have slime and I some kind of liner - never saw them until I changed tires, but those suckers were THICK!
Never had a flat with them in about 2000 miles. Then I bought 1.5" tires, no slime, no liner. I got a fair number of flats. Too many in my opinion.
The new tires were Specialized Nimbus (not the Armadillo version).
Nice to get your observation about more flats as the tires got a lot more use. One flat in 4-5000 miles is darn good. Sounds like you got one about every 400 miles after that.
Could be coincidence so I hope we'll get more responses on that particular factor.
Bob